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I said that I trained with him in the '80's - that was almost 25 years ago and since then I've trained with a number of other groups, including with Iwama groups and with Morihiro Saito in Iwama.

I just preferred the Yamaguchi teachers that I've trained with - that's a personal preference, as much to do with personality as anything else, it's not a statement about different styles.

I've also trained with Yoshinkan groups, and spent a few years in Daito-ryu, and others. I've seen the elephant.

So...what's your elephant? And does it make an iota of difference to the discussion?

In the following "you" is used loosely to refer to you and the group of people mentioned in one of Mark's posts. Consequently I am oversimplifying in a big way, correct me where you see fit.

At some point in your training you decided that the martial art that you practice lacks a certain quality that you believe the Founder possessed. It is then logical to ask yourself if your main teacher
(by main I mean the one that influenced and shaped of your art the most, this kinda extends to a group of "main" teachers if that is your case) possessed that quality. Then you apply the question to your teachers teacher etc... until you reach the Founder. This chain (or, less convincingly, a bunch of chains) is your lineage.

Using D Harden, M Sigman, Aunkai etc... as the source of that quality from outside of your lineage indicates that you believe that that quality is not present in your lineage any-more. It is then reasonable to ask at which transmission step was it lost.

My comment about the "standard, postwar, Kishomaru/Tohei, student experience" and before that, about "Aikido that came out of the Hombu dojo after the war" is just a shorthand for the
(I would have thought by now uncontroversial) fact that those students have seen the Founder once in a blue moon and trained under him even less. Consequently it is very likely that those students were, to a large extent, finding their own way, sometimes producing brilliant stuff such as the Nishio Aikido, but never having that quality.

At some point in your training you decided that the martial art that you practice lacks a certain quality that you believe the Founder possessed. It is then logical to ask yourself if your main teacher
(by main I mean the one that influenced and shaped of your art the most, this kinda extends to a group of "main" teachers if that is your case) possessed that quality. Then you apply the question to your teachers teacher etc... until you reach the Founder. This chain (or, less convincingly, a bunch of chains) is your lineage.

Using D Harden, M Sigman, Aunkai etc... as the source of that quality from outside of your lineage indicates that you believe that that quality is not present in your lineage any-more. It is then reasonable to ask at which transmission step was it lost.

As I said, I've seen the elephant - I've felt and trained with just about all of the major post-war guys at one time or another, including Saito et al.. I'm not talking about my lineage here - or any particular lineage.

It's not about what I can do or can't do at all, in terms of the discussion, although of course that's important to me personally.

Sorry for all the quotes, but I thought they tied together quite nicely...

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Carl
Ueshiba never studied KSR. He wanted his students to study while he watched. The soke made him take keppan, just to be allowed to watch. Most famous were him telling his students something like he would never do this or that...like KSR. "In Aiki we do it this way." There are several quotes, I just don't have access to my files right now.

So how did the first kumitachi get into his aikido weapons then? I agree, he would have adapted things, but that still makes it an influence, whether it's as a vessel for aiki or as a tool for adding some other quality to his budo… etc.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Quote:

Later, I mentioned all of this to Stan Pranin, publisher of Aiki News, and he has since established this and many other hitherto previously unpublished details of Morihei Ueshiba's training in the classical martial arts and the influence of the koryu upon the development of modern aikido. A great deal more work, however, remains to be done.

Not true either.
Stan (right here in his interview with Jun) Relegates Ueshiba's training to a short study under a 17 year old Judo shodan his dad hired, part time study over a few years time, traveling to a Yagyu Shingan dojo (something like 5 hours away) part time on weekends. and......
23 years in Daito ryu.

Dan

Alexander Sensei said Osensei adapted techniques from Daito Ryu and other arts. Mark's original assertion said this was unsupported but Osensei was clearly interested in other arts, checked them out and bits of them are found in his aikido. You actually said the following to Mark on this very subject on another thread a while back:

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Quote:

Mark Murray wrote:

I disagree. If Takeda had not taught him, Ueshiba would have been just another unknown person who had some training in bayonet, judo, and a bit of sword. He would have been just another of those muscle-bound martial artists who liked it when people broke their hand on his head. He would have remained unknown.

Well, I think you are taking this way past the question at hand. Not to be nitpicky...seriously.

Quote:

Mark Murray wrote:

And even though it grates on people, the answer is still -- pretty much all the martial skills and abilities about Ueshiba can be traced back to Takeda.

Come on Man. The guy stopped training with Takeda before the war and he continued to train for thirty more years! I am possibly the strongest advocate on the web that he was Daito ryu through and through. I drive people nuts over it. That his internals and aiki are sourced to Takeda is certain, but hell all of his peers stated they all grew past Takeda's teaching. All 5 of the greats.I am certain that when he was hanging out an experimenting/ training/watching all manner of things; koryu, modern weapons, Bayonet, even playing with Judo, that he...learned..something...anything different than what he got from Takeda.

I mean let's face it, he came from an informal Itto ryu and Jikishinkage ryu background into watching/ possibly training (I'd bet on it) informally in TSKSR and KSR and Yagyu. No one is EVER going to mistake Itto ryu's approach for Shinto ryu.

Ya don't think he picked up some things? Continued to develop? So even if he picked up one principle...cough. With all that exposure that's it...ONE...are you kidding me....What was he, blind?

There goes your absolute argument out the window. It's not reasonable.

Cheers

Dan

I would also add Ellis Amdur's related commentary from another thread :

Quote:

Ellis Amdur wrote:

Haga Junichi was the one who said that Ueshiba was the best swordsman in Japan. On the other hand, a person expert in classical sword spoke scornfully to me about the way Ueshiba executed yokogi-uchi (hitting the bundle of sticks, a Yakumaru-ha Jigen-ryu practice), because, done properly, one strikes exactly the same point every time (until the sticks break), whereas films of Ueshiba show him hitting the sticks at various portions. (The swordsman said to me, "He's doing exercise, not kenjutsu).

As for where Ueshiba learned what, I'm not aware of any records or accounts of Takeda teaching Ueshiba in detail. However, I've seen one article in Hiden magazine where the writer uses photos of pretty much all the major figures in Daito-ryu and some of Ueshiba's major students as well, to establish that there are several components (technique) that are common to all of them.

Ueshiba is known to have taken other people's forms and saying, "in aiki we do it this way," which suggests that he used sword kata as vessels to hold what he considered his primary study. Among the ryu that he used in this way were Yagyu Shinkage-ryu and Kashima Shinto-ryu.

That's an excellent article, Carl. It's basically about the development from normal strength to ki/kokyu skills and going from static to moving techniques.

There is an interesting implication that a student is expected to go from resistance and muscle toward using correct strength (kokyu ryoku) and then developing technique and correct-strength toward using no-strength (that's a very classical statement). What's interesting about the stated ideas in that article is that a person more or less has to find his own way out of the muscle-puzzle. Too many people never do, so they wind up adjusting their use of muscle to techniques... and that's the common scenario in Aikido (and a number of other arts).

The power of the ki/kokyu skills is very much tied to the power that an Uke/opponent puts out in an attack. There is an old, old saying that essentially says "I cannot beat a wooden man or a brass man, but if he is human I can beat him". The essential idea is that using ki/kokyu skills I can blend with the various generated forces of an opponent, blend my forces with his forces and the combination will defeat the opponent. Since a wooden man and a brass man generate no forces, my ki/kokyu forces offer no real advantage.

I would relate the warning about getting lost in the muscle-puzzle to something Chris Li said earlier in the thread about extracting from a morass. Also this...

Quote:

Christopher Li wrote:

What's changed? Takeda said that his art was a principle based art, not locked into specific physical postures - Ueshiba said the same, so did both Yoshiyuki Sagawa and Kenji Yoshida, which shows the same transmission going down two variant lines from Takeda.

I agree, the forms are for cultivating principles. Don't you use physical postures to train internally too? What are specific physical postures trying to achieve? We know Osensei left plenty of techniques. What were the techniques meant to do? Would you ever expect to attack or be attacked with a vertical chop to the head? It's only a little more likely than someone jumping out and trying to do push-hands.

"The term refers to a question, problem, solution, or controversial issue which is obvious to everyone who knows about the situation, but which is deliberately ignored because to do otherwise would cause great embarrassment, or trigger arguments or is simply taboo. The idiom can imply a value judgment that the issue ought to be discussed openly, or it can simply be an acknowledgment that the issue is there and not going to go away by itself."

I think that I don't understand what you mean by "the elephant", could you explain?

Maybe this elephant?

Quote:

The founder's thinking changed over the years between the time he started teaching aikido and later in his life, so naturally the kinds of movements he used also changed. There are very few people who had direct contact with him over the span of several decades, so in many ways it's like that old story of the three blind men all feeling different parts of an elephant and giving different descriptions of what an elephant is. In that sense, I wonder if there is anyone at all who understands O-Sensei's greatness completely.

When did I say anything about manifesting physical qualities? I said that the discussions not about me, personally, or my personal abilities or lineage.

Could you state in positive terms what the discussion is ( pretty late in the game but better latte then never :-) ). Is it about some sort of character algebra where the argument is if aiki = awase or aiki > awase without any regard to physical manifestation?

Could you state in positive terms what the discussion is ( pretty late in the game but better latte then never :-) ). Is it about some sort of character algebra where the argument is if aiki = awase or aiki > awase without any regard to physical manifestation?

You brought up physical manifestation, in reply to:

Quote:

It's not about what I can do or can't do at all, in terms of the discussion, although of course that's important to me personally.

As I said, it's not about me, what I can do or can't do. We were talking about the relationship (or non-relationship) about Aiki and awase, weren't we? At least until it devolved into a conversation about whether or not one ought to mimic Ueshiba's angles of the feet to the nth degree...

If it's about what I can do or can't do then it's just a "my stick is bigger than your stick" argument, isn't it? That's why I'm saying that my particular lineage isn't relevant to the conversation.

As I said, it's not about me, what I can do or can't do. We were talking about the relationship (or non-relationship) about Aiki and awase, weren't we? At least until it devolved into a conversation about whether or not one ought to mimic Ueshiba's angles of the feet to the nth degree...

If it's about what I can do or can't do then it's just a "my stick is bigger than your stick" argument, isn't it? That's why I'm saying that my particular lineage isn't relevant to the conversation.

I assure you (Chris) that by you in several of the preceding posts I didn't mean you personally but as a representative of certain attitude.

The OP started with "As far as I know, this is an unsupported idea. There idea that Ueshiba's aikido came from "other martial arts" is rather, well, wrong." followed by a list of specific items Mark claimed supported his argument. The hanmi discussion came a bit latter but I think, still in that spirit. I am pretty sure I haven't brought up specific angles, if I am wrong please point out that post. You know as well as I, what "hanmi" means and that it implies a whole body posture and not just the feet placement. I am still puzzled by you choosing to ignore it as being "external" since in literally all the photos in the "Budo" book the Founder is in hanmi and according to Saito Morihiro's commentary in the same book (and common sense) hanmi=roppo=six direction kamae (p34 in the special edition). Its IPSNEH (In Plain Sight Not Even Hidden).

As to weather or not to mimic the details of Ueshiba's angles - I think you (all of us) should.

I assure you (Chris) that by you in several of the preceding posts I didn't mean you personally but as a representative of certain attitude.

The OP started with "As far as I know, this is an unsupported idea. There idea that Ueshiba's aikido came from "other martial arts" is rather, well, wrong." followed by a list of specific items Mark claimed supported his argument. The hanmi discussion came a bit latter but I think, still in that spirit. I am pretty sure I haven't brought up specific angles, if I am wrong please point out that post. You know as well as I, what "hanmi" means and that it implies a whole body posture and not just the feet placement. I am still puzzled by you choosing to ignore it as being "external" since in literally all the photos in the "Budo" book the Founder is in hanmi and according to Saito Morihiro's commentary in the same book (and common sense) hanmi=roppo=six direction kamae (p34 in the special edition). Its IPSNEH (In Plain Sight Not Even Hidden).

As to weather or not to mimic the details of Ueshiba's angles - I think you (all of us) should.

I'm not ignoring it at all - but I think that what you and I are seeing in the kamae are quite different. Anyway, that has been said before, we 're really just going around in circles.

People can stand in hanmi all day. Many have for decades and simply.....fail.....structurally. They are one-sided weighted, back to front posting and totally susceptible to lateral loads.

thanIf you want to advertise that your teacher got it more than anyone else and "all questions could be answered by going to him...then shouldn't his students be an example of both answering and doing?
At what point is critical Analysis and delivery more important than lineage? For some....never....even when all around them, their lineage representatives keep failing critical testing.
"Do not look to authority for truth
Look to truth for authority."
Dan

I am still puzzled by you choosing to ignore it as being "external" since in literally all the photos in the "Budo" book the Founder is in hanmi and according to Saito Morihiro's commentary in the same book (and common sense) hanmi=roppo=six direction kamae (p34 in the special edition). Its IPSNEH (In Plain Sight Not Even Hidden).

As to weather or not to mimic the details of Ueshiba's angles - I think you (all of us) should.

Hanmi is as divorced from "creating structure" as eating cheese.
Thinking it is -linked-to creating structure is a profound failure.
This is continuously shown in open rooms , now in front of hundreds of teachers and students alike. We can pretend it isn't happening, but we would be just pretending.

Ueshiba pointed to traditional methods for creating structure. I will leave it up to you to figure out why he never mentioned hanmi as having any part in that.
I say the reason he never did....is because it doesn't have a damn thing to do with internal structure.
Dan

Hanmi is as divorced from "creating structure" as eating cheese.
Thinking it is -linked-to creating structure is a profound failure.
This is continuously shown in open rooms , now in front of hundreds of teachers and students alike. We can pretend it isn't happening, but we would be just pretending.

Hanmi is related to awase (musubi). There is a counter-case for lateral stability, but then so there is for poor awase (musubi), especially with weapons. Whichever you favour, it is clear and passed down through the kuden and dictations that Osensei worked on forms of hanmi. Lecturing us yet again on the virtues of your take on Aiki does not change that. Reminding us that more and more people know what you are talking about now is a reason to stop lecturing us and help resolve the question in the OP.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

I am certain that when he was hanging out an experimenting/ training/watching all manner of things; koryu, modern weapons, Bayonet, even playing with Judo, that he...learned..something...anything different than what he got from Takeda.

I mean let's face it, he came from an informal Itto ryu and Jikishinkage ryu background into watching/ possibly training (I'd bet on it) informally in TSKSR and KSR and Yagyu. No one is EVER going to mistake Itto ryu's approach for Shinto ryu.

You even name some of the examples others have said.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Ya don't think he picked up some things? Continued to develop? So even if he picked up one principle...cough. With all that exposure that's it...ONE...are you kidding me....What was he, blind?

I will try to outline what I think in more detail tomorrow when I can get to a computer. This is from my phone.
I hardly think telling.... me...I am lecturing on MY version of aiki, when I am using Ueshiba's words and exercises in proper context is correct. At least my efforts are cogent, have historical precedent, are logical and can be explained, demonstrated to produce power in anyone who does them....thus can be taught, and I have a thousand witnesses.
Thus far our detractors have produced nothing to match the above, and no person who is able to cancel out, much less absorb what we claim Ueshiba was doing. Which leaves me wondering why we are even having a debate in the first place. I am being polite enough to try and explain what Ueshiba was in fact doing to those who have no comparable power, explanation of or method of their own tbat produces the unusual power he was noted for. Instead they point to their teachers and to stances and techniques. None of which the founder EVER gave credit to. What he did give credit to...they self admittedly cannot explain.
Oh well.
Dan

In the end the founder gave credit to a group of Japanese men who then went on to disseminate something in the best way they knew to the rest of the world..or they stayed in Japan and did the same there based on the culture they live in and what is best for the lifestyle of the people (balanced lifestyle, work, family etc). Some did better than others but that's always the way in any endeavour.

Push tests etc are not unusal here...I went down to a ki aikido club a few weeks back and they did it there, and surprisingly well. Many a place will say the warm ups are "taiso" etc. Others don't of course.

All the best with helping some out and furthering their abilities..nothing wrong with that...I wouldn't want to be justifying myself or those long gone every hour of the day though. That must be tiresome.

The book is entitled simply Budo and was published in 1938
by Morihei Ueshiba in his private capacity. Budo was virtually
unknown outside of the inner circles of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo
until its ?re-discovery? was announced in November 1981 in
the magazine Aiki News. During an interview conducted shortly
before the article appeared, Zenzaburo Akazawa, a prewar dis-
ciple of Morihei Ueshiba, produced a copy of the rare technical
manual. Akazawa stated that only a few hundred copies of Budo
were distributed and that it served as a training aid and fund-
raising device during the difficult years of the prewar era.
Contents of Budo
Budo measures 18 x 26.7 cm and contains 50 pages
divided into two parts. The first section consists of a
one-page composition titled Dobun (Essay of the Way),
followed by 26 doka (songs or poems), a two-page table
of contents, and an eight-page essay titled ?The Essence
of Techniques.? The second part presents 50 techniques
demonstrated by Morihei Ueshiba in 119, 5.3 cm square
photographs. The technical material covered includes
preparatory exercises, basic techniques, knife (tantodori)
and sword-taking techniques (tachidori), sword vs.
sword forms (ken tai ken), mock-bayonet (juken) tech-
niques, and finishing exercises (shumatsu dosa). Budo
is the only work on aikido?Ueshiba?s art was actually
called aiki budo at this stage?in which the Founder
ersonally appears demonstrating techniques. Ueshiba?s train-
ing partners in the book are his son Kisshomaru, Gozo Shioda?
who would later create Yoshinkan Aikido?and a third man
named Okubo about whom little is known.

I hardly think telling.... me...I am lecturing on MY version of aiki, when I am using Ueshiba's words and exercises in proper context is correct.

You are using translations of certain excerpts of his words, exercises that you believe to be cognate, and your concept of the context is entirely your own. So what you are teaching is your own invention that has been heavily inspired by Ueshiba.

I still do not understand what is wrong with being honest about that.

Another thing, you have had success with discovering these methods and teaching others, right? Well Ueshiba didn't. Therefore you cannot be doing what he was doing.

You are using translations of certain excerpts of his words, exercises that you believe to be cognate, and your concept of the context is entirely your own. So what you are teaching is your own invention that has been heavily inspired by Ueshiba.

I still do not understand what is wrong with being honest about that.

Another thing, you have had success with discovering these methods and teaching others, right? Well Ueshiba didn't. Therefore you cannot be doing what he was doing.

Actually, what Dan is teaching is stuff thousands of years old and can be found in Chinese and Indian internal arts; which is pretty much the source of Ueshiba's info for his development of internal power via Takeda. If you look at a lot of Ueshiba's quotes on aiki from this perspective, you will see that a lot of his quotes are exactly what can be found in the Chinese teachings word for word - kind of makes some of his stuff less esoteric and more understandable.

Of course people can (and will) believe what they want for various reasons that help support their decisions in pursuing something. For those that are comfortable in the mainstream and are happy with their pursuit of martial arts as it is, then what we are doing is not for you, and that is fine with me. However, for those like us that have seen or felt something that was lacking in their budo, go in search of it. Like a lot of the folks that train with Dan, I have felt direct students of Ueshiba and Horikawa and many more direct students of those students from various lineages such as ASU, AAA, Iwama, Ki Society, and some independent groups - only a few (from DR and Ki Society only) had some feeling of an internal skill, but for the most part, they had nothing special at all. And absolutely no one felt any where near like what Dan feels like. So if you are happy where you are at with your Aikido, stay there - but if you are looking for that little special thing that can set you apart, get out and start training with those that have it.

Actually, what Dan is teaching is stuff thousands of years old and can be found in Chinese and Indian internal arts; which is pretty much where Ueshiba got his info for his development of internal power via Takeda. If you look at a lot of Ueshiba's quotes on aiki from this perspective, you will see that a lot of his quotes are exactly what can be found in the Chinese teachings word for word - kind of makes some of his stuff less esoteric and more understandable.